Hitchhiker’s Guide is so entrenched in nerd culture I’m always a little surprised when I reference it outside of my regular circles & people don’t get it. Python’s Holy Grail is another one. The older these things get the fewer people know of them though. Time gets to everything eventually. Apart from the digital watch thing Hitchhiker’s is pretty timeless. Most of it isn’t bound to a super specific time period. Holy Grail is much more timeless since it’s a send up of much older stuff. It’s still weird to think of them fading from popular culture though.

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Honestly, I read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I found it amusing, and moved on. I honestly found almost nothing in it quotable, and was quite surprised when I heard people saying random things that turned out to be quotes from it, because they are almost never funny nor do they make any sense, it’s just like “These are words from a thing!” And I’m someone who quotes The Princess Bride constantly, I am not claiming to be a person of elevated taste. I also don’t see it done very often. I guess I’m in a different group of nerds.

You have to take the subjectivity of humor into account as well. I find Addams’ writing very humorous, but not everyone does clearly. I also laugh so hard at connect 4 memes so hard I make myself sick. That’s just the nature of comedy.

Hitchhikers is one of those things that always surprises me a bit when I see it referenced. I never read it, nor did I watch it. I remember when I was younger some of my friends were super into it, but I just never got around to it. Probably out of stubbornness. Thus it has always remained this enigma where I know it exists, and on the odd occasion hear of it, but never get intrigued enough to look at it.

It was rather important back then for a certain demographic, and still a decent introduction to, well, a certain way to look at things. And it was fun. But if it’s not for you then it’s not for you.

I read it, not having access to the radio plays. I found it doesn’t re-read well for me, but it doesn’t need to, either. I don’t quote it much since when I grew up with it, there was an unwritten rule that it wasn’t quotable material as otherwise we’d see nothing but HHGTTG quotes. That moratorium lifted when Adams died, making his passing bittersweet.

Maybe it’s just me, but it took me until the middle of the fourth book in the trilogy to realize that it wasn’t science fiction; it was British farce in sci-fi clothing (kind of like Red Dwarf — another of my favorites).

I was visiting with my brother, who is ten years older, about his collection of Hopalong Cassidy memorabilia. It resonates for him but I have never actually seen an entire Hopalong Cassidy film or episode so it just doesn’t do much for me. My introduction to Hitchhiker’s Guide and Monty Python came by way of PBS back in the late 70’s early 80″s. My son is familiar with them because he was around when we watched the movies for the umpteenth time but they don’t really resonate for him. I started to quote a lie from the movie Real Genius the other day but caught myself when i realized it would have no meaning for the person i was talking to. Without a shared experience, memes don’t mean much.

I’m old enough to have gotten the joke of the character name “Ford Prefect,” but I suspect most of the succeeding generations won’t. All cultural references fade with time. I wonder how many in-jokes we miss in movies of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s.

Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Monty Python. The interesting thing is their absurdist comedy of all three is very similar, just presented differently. What is going to happen is that every other generation is going to re-discover one of the three and then it will be relevant for a while, then fade. Right now, we’re in the Terry Pratchett phase with Good Omens being on Prime right now with really good actors (much like Hitchhiker’s during the radio plays, or the TV show). When we hit an anniversary date for Python comedy, it will go through the same cycle. Spamalot did a lot to promote Monty Python as well.

I will say this – I see more Pratchett and Monty Python quotes than I see Adams quotes. Only because Terry Pratchett wrote waaaaay more books and Python is just culturally and reality relevant.

I dunno, I was really glad I had my towel the other day…. Went to help a friend extract his big tractor from a pond-which he was digging, then got stuck-then got rained on -hard. Before all was said and done, we had a deuce and a half army truck and two one ton Dodge Cummins variously connected by 3 tow ropes,3 chains, and one tow strap. Guy was glad to have my towel to put in his (nice) pickup seat for my muddy friend to sit on. Got home about 10:30 that night. If you get a chance.. ask Alexa for the answer to “life, the universe, and everything”. It has to happen. Maybe it’ll instigate the robot apocalypse when they get tired of the question.

Since the title of today’s comic is Ghost Adventures, I’m gonna have to chime in here on the show itself:

I’m honestly torn with it. On one hand, I love a good paranormal investigation show if only for the fact that I’m curious with the paranormal and wonder what does lie the great beyond, if at all. On the other, I’m just…not a fan of Zak Bagans. The rest of his crew is cool, (especially Aaron, who I honestly think is the real star of the show) but I find that Zak, despite his notoriety, comes off as incredibly self-centered. I’m not sure if that’s just his actual nature or he’s just riding on the popularity of his Las Vegas Haunted Museum.

Actually, I agree with you 100%. I’m not a fan of the scream and swear school of ghost hunting, as demonstrated by Derek Francis Johnson (as ‘Derek Acorah’) on the series Most Haunted. I liked the old Ghost Hunters well enough to pony up $40 for their course. I see there is a new Ghost Hunters coming in August and Grant Wilson is going to head up the team. We’ll see.